Friday, December 2, 2011

Christmas Wish List

Happy December! I can't tell you how much I love the month of December. Not because of the snow and cold or how short the days seem to be but because I am a fool for Christmas! Let me tell you that if we were in our house already it would look like a Christmas wonderland! Our decorations would have gone up the weekend after Thanksgiving and I would be blasting the Christmas music like it was going outta style! And I sure hope that soon we can do that. Anyways, this year Mike and I have decided to only buy each other one or two very small reasonably priced items. i.e. we poured boat loads of money into our reno plus still have a wedding to pay for  so lets be reasonable oooh kay? Ok.


I'm not exactly sure what my teddy bear Mike would like but I do have a few things swirrling around in my mind I might be excited to unwrap in 24 or so days. :o)


Washi Tape :


This stuff looks so cool. I have been really getting into reading craft blogs latley (when I'm not slaving away on that durn house!) and I would really love to add this to the few little craft things I've got. Mike doesn't know it yet but I have dreams of turning Our computer/office area into a mini crafting station. Nothing to crazy but a place I can go and create things like scrapbook pages or greeting cards.






Divine Twine:


Divine twine. Bakers Twine. Crafting and baking goodness. I would love a spool (or two!) of these in orange, pink, yellow or whatever suits the buyers fancy! I love all the colors! Also check out the blog Whisker Graphics they show so many cool ways to use this stuff. I love it.






Cupcake Liners


I just love all the cupcake liners at Sweet Estelle's Etsy Shop or really any of her items. I dream of baking delicious carrot cupcakes dressed in these fancy cupcake liners in my new convection oven! I can't wait! Makes me giddy, like I want to go find and enter a bake sale of something. heh heh!






Bag in a bag


So if there is anything in life I love (aside from my sweet Mikey, Mike, Dexter, our house all my friends and family... You get the point) Its purses. But if there is one thing I HATE its digging around for a bazillion million years trying to find something in my purse only to have to empty practically all the contents out before I finally see what I was searching for laying in the bottom corner. And it happens every time  Doesn't matter what I'm looking for, cell phone, pen, wallet YES even my wallet, burts bees, anything It always gets lost in my purses dark abyss. SO, I WANT, NEED have to HAVE this bag in a bag by invite.L Its pretty reasonably priced and a great idea. I would like it in beige please. Thank you. :o)








And last but not least Royal Icing Bottles


I've wanted this set of Royal Icing bottles from Sweet Dani B ever since I saw her on the Martha Stewart Show last valentines day. She made these "love bird" cookies above and I thought it was just soo cool! I don't know if I've ever really had royal icing or if it tastes any good but I've been reading the blog Bake at 350 and she makes a bunch of really cute cookies and seems to only use Royal Icing. So naturally I want to give it a try! :o) If you go to Martha's website you can search for the video and watch them make these adorable little things.


Well its time for me to go and pass our again. My sweet little nugget and I have terrible colds, I almost can't function. Hopefully its short lived, I'm not certain I can deal with it much longer!


xoxo

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Long Time No Blog!

Hellooo! It has been a crazy past few weeks and this house is sucking us dry. I feel like we have lost touch and abandoned everything else to get this dang house done and the move in date still just seems to be moving further and further away. We have a new date, we are shooting for December 4th. And we HAVE to be in by then for one giant important reason.... CHRISTMAS TREES!!!! Yes, Christmas trees. Real, live, furry deliciously forest smelling Christmas trees. I've been waiting for absolute years to put up a real Christmas tree and you better believe one is going up in this house and in the beginning of the month of December so I can enjoy every last needle drop! Now, onto a quick random picture post....


Have you met my half bath recently? Stunning isn't she? Don't worry, she is in line for a country, cottagy face lift!

I considered just leaving the light as is and just plugging it into the wall outlet when I wanted it on but then Mike started to say in his whiny voice "But where will I plug in my hairdryer and curling iron!? You can't possibly expect me to get ready in the morning without a functioning light and outlet!!!" And so I said fine, I'll run a new light and outlet for you. Cry baby.

Institution green and toxic glue. Mmmmm relaxing...

Errr is that suppose to happen?!? Not exactly.

Kitchen. Can't say its my dream kitchen but I've got some plans. Stay tuned!

And here live in the flesh is the rare and wild Mike, a particular creature he hones his art by painstakingly placing tile spacers just so, making sure that not one tile is off in even the slightest of ways...

SHAZAM! Now that's what I'm talkin about!! Kinda reminds me of some of my inspiration pictures.

As smooth and white as a new born baby's tushie! FANTASTIC job Mike!

The stylish light fixture at the front entry. 

So those are a few little tid bits to keep you all on the edge of your seats! And to keep you reading my blog, I swear I'm not gone forever! Just busy! Hope everyone is staying warm, that excludes you Theresa I don't wanna hear it! :o) Keep your fingers all crossed we make it to our set date!


xoxo

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Inspiration Photos....


Home Farm 1 traditional entry
Kitchen 



Crown Hill Remodel traditional entry
Entryway






Clean Mudroom


Pretty Mudroom


Country Kitchens

Love these pale yellow walls

Someday I'll make my Cape Cod look like this

Love the chest coffee table and white couch

SWOON!

Love country kitchens 

Would love a breakfast nook with this

Beautiful Pantry

Peaceful Bedroom

THIS is how I want to do my bedroom


I have NO idea why Mike would every say he's going to end up living in a girls house. :o) I think I should just be happy he's willing!

xoxo

Thursday, October 20, 2011

1 down 59 to go!!!

Hello! Today was a combination day, a day of being completely unproductive in the beginning but turned around and ended up being very productive in the end! Remember those cute little slippers that looked like monsters feet? Well, last night I would have thought they were his real feet coming out of hiding! He was a complete and utter monster! Though I love him dearly after his 4th wake up (at about 4 AM) I was ready to scream. Come this morning when he got me up at around 7, which is actually quite late for the little bugger, I was not a happy camper. I could hardly keep my eyes open I was so tired, it wasn't until I had taken my glasses off to just rest my eyes a bit while he watched Nick Jr. that the mommy monster really set in. I opened my eyes to see the face of an innocent angle, one who hid his mommy's glasses on her. I searched everywhere, blindly, for my glasses until I had to get my mom to help me look because I couldn't see enough to even find them. Afterward, my glasses safely on my face we all decided it would be a good idea for me to go back to sleep for a while as I was anything but pleasant. I intended to just sleep for awhile getting up late morning and going over to the house to work out some aggression. I finally awoke sometime in the afternoon.


In other news today is Thursday. Which has really meant nothing in particular to me for weeks now but there is some significance to is and that is that Thursdays are Weight Watchers weigh in days. Now when I moved back home I decided I was going to join weight watchers and finally get this baby weight off! Also, I'm getting married so I figured lets do this! I went three times. I joined this summer. I know what your thinking, Stephanie you joined and paid for weight watchers all this time and only went three times?? Well, I'm certainly not proud of that fact but yes, I did. My mother has been gently reminding me every week that I should either quit or go but I've just been letting it slide. Every week I say oh I'll start following the plan this week for sure then I'll go weight in and start going, but I always end up not following through with myself and then I'm too embarrassed to go weight in. Well, today I finally made that step and swallowed my pride and just went and did it! And I lost a pound, since August 25th. But hey its a pound right? So Here is to keeping on track and doing the right thing, after all I have a wedding dress to buy!


Speaking of wedding dresses, Nikki I swear we are going to go to Green Bay someday soon! I've just been so preoccupied with everything else going on around these parts its actually been the furthest thing from my mind! Can you believe that? A girl thinking about everything else but her wedding? Crazy!


After dinner we went back over to the house to pull staples...


I'm ready to go fix our house mom!!

Hello there!

After a few laps around the living room I decided having a 24 pound child strapped to my chest was probably not the best for a persons back. So off he came and off we went to go finish destroying our house. Dad ended up coming over with us and bless his heart finished pulling out the staples I couldn't get in the steps as well as all the tack strips on the steps and in the master bedroom! Wahoo! Progress! I also finished pulling up all the staples in the master, hall and Michael's bedroom now all that is left to make that carpet a distant memory are the tack strips in the hall and Michael's room. 

Can't you just see it? Refinished steps and white trim?

Yuck.

You certainly can't tell through all the thinset but there are hardwood floors underneath all that breaking tile. Unfortunately they are ruined. Tonight I also accomplished tearing up all those tiles, half of them were broken or just set in there anyways so it felt good to pull them all up. This weekend while I'm working Mike and his brother are going to start the sad task of pulling out all that ruined hardwood underneath so we can replace the floor properly with new prettier tiles. 

No pictures, Please!

I came downstairs to break for a bit to find Mike ripping out all those pine boards in our kitchen. It smelled soooo bad when he started doing that. I'm not sure if its because the floor underneath was just nasty, old, and dirty or if it was because the pine boards had gaps in them and when they cooked or swept everything got stuck in between or underneath the boards. Either way it is gross! Our plan is to just get something nice but cheap to put down until we completely redo the kitchen in a few years. At least now all our floors will be even and Mikey won't trip anymore. 

The wall with all the bead board completely off. 

So we had originally planned to hang quarter inch drywall on the wall in order to make it presentable. There was the option to mud the wall instead but we figured drywall would be quicker and look better. Thing is they day we went to go pick up the drywall it was pouring out. Water and drywall don't mix. Mudding the wall it is!!! Turns out that is going to work well anyways, the plaster behind the bead board is actually in really good shape and Mike was able to get all the wallpaper goo off and then patched the holes and sanded down the glue that was used. Tonight Mike's brother put on the first thin coat of drywall mud and it looks really good already! I can't wait to see the finished project. Oh and an interesting bit of information, once we had all the bead board down we noticed there was a large hold patched with drywall in the wall, a perfectly rectangular hole the exact size, shape and placement for a window! Hmm, I wonder why they decided to take that out....

Our fireplace! 

If you look closely you can see the paint swatches I am going to use lined up on the mantle. There are three different colors there, one that will be used on the walls, one that will be an accent for the fireplace wall, and one that I will be using in both the front and back entryways. I know they all look very similar, but I want them to flow since the area they are going to be in is such and open concept. I can't wait to get to the painting stage of the project!

One of my projects for tomorrow was to get all the wallpaper off the walls in the half bath downstairs. I figured that I would get a jump start on it tonight while I was waiting for Mike and Patrick to finish up with the mudding. While I was in the bathroom, thinking about how it will look with bead board on the bottom, I asked myself, "why is the bottom half of the wall with the wallpaper and inch wider than the upper half of the wall?" I called Mike in and mentioned it to him and we both kinda scratched our heads. We noticed it before but it had never dawned on us exactly why that was. Sooo, Mike grabbed his handy dandy crowbar and started to take the trim off the top and wouldn't you know those weirdo's had put a layer of drywall around the entire bottom half of the bathroom. But that's not the best part, we ripped off some of that drywall to reveal they had drywalled right over tiles! So, at one point in time the bottom half of the bathroom was tile, someone didn't like it and figured a quick fix would be to just drywall right on over it! So operation destroy bottom half of bathroom shall commence tomorrow as well! 

Check these puppies out!

Mike came back from Home Depot tonight and presented me with these. A new pair of Irwin vise-grip pliers! For all my staple pulling needs. Some girls get jewelry, I get a new pair of pliers! Aww, sweetie, they are just what I wanted! 

Well, I think that me and my blistered fingers are going to head to bed! I've got a full day of laundry, destruction and work tomorrow! 


xoxo

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Operation Destruction!

Hello everyone, thought I would make a quick update before I end up getting completely sidetracked and sucked into something else and don't get around to this! Have I mentioned how crazy my life has been? Working nights I feel like my days are all blending into one another, working at the house and oh yeah, did I actually forget for a moment that I'm also suppose to be planning a wedding in June?! Yes, I suppose I did. In fact I believe I mentioned in my last post I was taking our sweet little pork chop to the doctors, when I called to confirm the appointment they we confused as they informed me my doctor wasn't in the office today. Weird I thought, don't I have an appointment today? No Stephanie, your appointment is for NOVEMBER 17th not OCTOBER 17th which it clearly stated on the card I had looked at at least a dozen times. Lord help me...


I made an addition to my blog. If you look to the right there is a category that lists all the blogs I love love love to read on a daily basis. But I must first make a disclaimer that if you should chose to look at them I am in no way responsible for the consequences as you may never be productive again. I could do nothing but read them all day long, not showering, paying bills, or even feeding my baby just sipping coffee and reading my beloved blogs. You've been warned.


By the way, how cute is this little boy...


He's started making this really funny face when you say smile for the camera. :o) And would you look at those arms?! Still with the marshmallow rolls, oh stop growing up baby, mommy can't take it anymore.




Michael went to town with grandma and grandpa Muntz today and came home wearing these little monster slippers. He just loves them, I guess he put them on after getting them from the store and wore them all the way home, even outside. My mom thought they would be perfect to keep his little tootsies warm this winter since we are going to have some brand spankin new refinished hardwood floors!


Speaking of hardwood floors... Several things went through my mind today as I was yet again painstakingly pulling out staples...


  • who needs hardwood? Carpet is much warmer anyways
  • do you think it would still look just as good if I just painted over the staples???
  • So help whoever put this carpet in! Should we ever meet he better run!
  • Seriously, who really needs hardwood floors?! Aren't they out anyways?!
  • I think my fingers are going to fall off
  • I'm NEVER moving out of this house after this is all said and done!
So again we were there for about 2 hours and we still don't even have the stairs done as far as staples and tack strips go and we have the entire upstairs yet to do. I have to admit that when Mike pulled the carpet out I thought "piece of cake" how hard could pulling staples out of the floor really be anyways? (uhh, hard very very hard) But I do know that in the end, the patient's and care we took will pay off when we can take a step back, admire our new refinished stairs and take pride in knowing it was our hard work, sweat and a few not so ladylike cuss words that got us to the end result. 

We have made a plan though, Operation Destruction. And it is set to commence today and end Sunday night at 10pm. In other words, our goal is to have all the tack strips and staples, yucky floor tiles, and kitchen floor all ripped out and cleaned up by this weekend. Then Monday we will start rebuilding again, wood filling and pudding the holes in the walls, fixing the trim and baseboards and all the other general preparation that needs to be done before we can start on the floors and then start priming. It may be a lofty goal but we have Mike his brother and I all working towards it and I think if we really put our all into it we can get it done. At least the destruction part. 

Tomorrow is RCIA (rite of christian initiation of adults) class with Father Dan and then in the afternoon I have my bi-monthly hair appointment. Now I normally just get my bangs re-cut and have my hair cleaned up a bit, fixing the layers and taking off anything that is scraggly and split. I've also been a bit hesitant to cut my hair as I have a beautiful hairstyle in mind for my wedding and I know that it will require my hair to be a certain longer length. But I have to be honest, I am so sick of my hair I could puke. Puke I tell you puke! Its just gotten to the point where I don't want to do anything with it, I pull it up in a ponytail or just clump it on top my hair to keep it out of my face. It looks terrible. Plain and simple. So, I figured June is quite a ways off, 8 months in fact. So, why couldn't I get my hair cut short and then just let it grow out later? My hair grows fast, and I'm not planning on getting a pixi cut or anything so why not just go for it? I tend to chicken out and play it safe way to often but tomorrow I think I just might go for it! I'll keep you posted.

I've been perusing the web for a new white flower pot for the housewarming gift I recieved from my sister Theresa...

This is called a spider plant. And its the only spider that is welcome in my house!!

I had originally planned to have my plants on my dining room table but I've been decorating my house in my mind and I think I've discovered the absolute perfect place for them! We have a dormer window directly at the top of our stairs that is just filled with light during the day, right now there is a built in countertop that acts as a shelf but I may get rid of that and put this really cute table I own there and use it as a plant area. Wouldn't that be so pretty, come up the stairs and see all those beautiful green plants in their white pots in that little window cubbie? I can't wait!

Aren't these so pretty? I wish I had an IKEA close by, I would buy these in a snap!

And now I would like to leave you with a story. The other day my mom was babysitting our little munckin and as he was playing sweetly beside her in the kitchen she decided to do some chores one of which was unloading the dishwasher. Michael likes to help with that sometimes and my parents let him. Afterward my mom went in the other room for something when she heard him making a ruckus in the kitchen, when she came back this is what she found...


Michael had gotten the dishwasher open and pulled the rack out so he could sit in it! Clearly you can see he thinks he is just so cute, which he is, but that is besides the point! Boys, what are ya gonna do with em! 

I hope that everyone had a wonderful day and I can't wait to update of what happens next in my crazy life!

xoxo

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Quick Update!

Hello!!! Sorry I've been MIA for a few days, I've been working and sleeping and working some more. Mike and I went over to the house tonight to tackle pulling out the staples and tack strips from the carpeting that had covered the majority of our flooring, may its dirty remains rest in peace, and figured we could get it done in a day or so and then get started on refinishing. HA! Oh the fact that we are amateur DIY'ers is flaunted in our faces at every corner. After having been to the house for the better half of 3 hours tonight we hobbled back to my parents with three steps and a closet done. Three steps. Three hours, three steps. If I'm not mistaken that's an hour a step!!! Lord help us in this journey...


One huge thing we did get accomplished today though was ripping out this homemade coat closet that is at the entry way of our back door. There is hardwood floors underneath it and they had just screwed 2x4's into the wall, covered the front with paneling and slapped some metal bi fold doors on the front. I asked my sweet handyman to tear those suckas out so I could put this in its place...


No Mike, I'm not on the Pottery Barn website AGAIN!


Well, I have another LONG workday ahead of me again tomorrow and our sweet little bean has a doctor appointment. Hopefully one of these days I will remember to start taking some before and after pictures! Until the next post have a wonderful day!




xoxo

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

SOLD!

Hello! I meant to get a post up about us FINALLY CLOSING ON OUR HOUSE but we have been going NON STOP since it happened that now was the soonest I could squeeze it in.


So funny bit of information for all of you out there who care to know, these are not my hands. That isn't the funny information, the funny information is that when you purchase a homesteps house (FreddyMac/foreclosure) apparently you don't get keys. Oh yeah, true story. So there we were, sitting at the big table our mortgage lady to one side the title lady the other and our realtor across the way, all sitting there like we were on some HGTV show. We sign the final papers, big smiles, congratulations and handshakes are exchanged when I giddily look at the realtor and say so lets have the keys! She says oh there are no keys. Uhhhh excuse me? Say what? Your kidding right? Nope. Not kidding at all. Your house is currently wide open so I suggest you go to The Home Depot and buy new locks because homesteps doesn't provide you with keys to the house, they don't have keys to the house. Now I'm not sure if this is because the previous owners didn't leave the keys or if this is some sort of thing with a homesteps house but either way it was kind of a let down to not hold those precious little things in our hands. Once we actually walked into our house though the disappointment quickly left! WE ARE HOME OWNERS!


Yesterday was spent showing it off to our family and then assessing up close and personal just exactly what it is we need to do to the place to get it lookin top noch. Turns out, a lot.... After the initial daunting shock wore off we went home and slept on the fact that we were finally homeowners and just how exciting it is and all the things we have in store for us in the near future.


Today my dad and I went over and spend the better half of 5 hours cleaning up the yard. 5 hours. That is a looong time doing yard work folks! I think it may be the most physical labor I've ever done. Ever. We started off by cutting down a huge burning bush by the side of the house. This thing had gotten so overgrown that it covered almost one entire living room window and you could see about a half a foot of top branches through the master bedroom window which is upstairs. Yeah yeah, that's right the burning bush burns no longer. When I told a few coworkers that at work they were all like "awww. But burning bushes are so pretty." I had to agree that a few weeks ago when I saw it I couldn't believe how stunning it was in all its vibrant glory but it soon passed and then all I was left with again was a bunch of overgrown branches. It looks much better now, trust me. After we were done doing that we raked the front and side yard which took FOR-EVER! Phew! Then we weeded a millions years worth of weeds out of the front flower beds. I can't thank my dad enough for lending me his helping hand and getting this all done. It looks so much better now!


Tonight Mike and I went over after supper to work on getting some cleaning done inside the house so we could get started on some prep work for all the patching and painting we have in store. I'm on one side of the living room just dusting and minding my own business when all of a sudden I hear a riiiiiiip! I turn around to find Mike on a ladder pulling down this panel of bead board! It turns out it had been gaping ever so slightly when mister Mike got a little curious. He apparently started by just cracking the edge ever so slightly to see what was behind it and when he discovered that it was not great but somewhat decent plaster and drywall he tore the daggum thing down!


There is the portion of the wall that has been ripped down. Green bead board on either side.


So now Mike and his brother are going to be scraping the wall tomorrow and then hanging quarter inch drywall to cover up the imperfections and make it look like a wall that always was instead of a wall that had wallpaper goo on it and was just covered with paneling because they couldn't get it off. Which I suppose in a sense is what we are doing too but.... whatever.


After he pulled part of the wall off he decided he was going to make his way upstairs to "look around a bit." After just a few short minutes I was called upstairs to see what he had found. There Mike was, on the floor digging at the carpet with his screwdriver. There in all its seemingly perfect glory was hardwood floors. Later in the night after we had walked around the house a million times with Mike's brother talking about all the projects we were thinking about doing we found ourselves upstairs again picking at the corner of carpet. Well, one thing led to another when all of a sudden Mike stands up with the corner of carpet and pulls! He just couldn't stop himself, he kept pulling and pulling and tearing up all the carpet to reveal beautiful hardwood floors!!!


                                BEFORE


                                AFTER


The pictures don't do them justice. For one they were taken on my phone, and secondly they really are just so nice! There is a bunch of carpet dust and floor taks but once all that is cleaned up I think its going to be perfect. These things aren't even going to need refinishing! They are still shiny and everything!


After we took a step back and assessed what we had done we moved onto the stairs. We weren't quite sure what we were going to do now that we had ripped up the carpet as the stairs in the house are also carpeted. We had wanted to put down hardwood stair risers at some point but that certainly wasn't something we had planned on tackling immediately. For one we don't have the money to do those and all the other projects that really needed to be done first and secondly, we were hoping to get a few other DIY projects under our belts before tackling something as daunting as building your own hardwood stairs. We figured we had better bite the bullet though and just rip off the carpet and see what we were facing. This is what we found.


                                BEFORE: nasty pet and kid stained carpeting.


                                AFTER: Hardwood steps!!!!


Can't you even believe it?! Again the picture doesn't do them justice! They need a good cleaning and a little care due to the tacking strips from the carpeting but the main point is they are hardwood. Finished, beautiful hardwood stairs. I die!!!!!!


I am so dang excited about this little house I can't even begin to tell you. Mike is too. He can't wait to get started and see the finished project.


This may possibly be the longest blog post ever. I have much more to post but think I had better turn in for the night (seeing as though its 1am). Tomorrow I will post more, also I'm going to bring my camera and take some good before pictures since everything is getting ripped down before I can even get a chance to show anyone what it looked like!


Also, I've been meaning to take a picture of my new plant on my dining room table to post but its on my parents camera and all the picture I've been able to upload are from my phone. Thanks Theresa! Can't wait for you to come and see it!!!!


Hope everyone had a wonderful day!!


xoxo